HYDERABAD: A 55-year-old lawyer lodged a complaint with the Punjagutta police, accusing a private hospital of shifting him to a COVID-19 ward despite testing negative for the disease. He also alleged that the hospital charged him exorbitantly in the name of treatment.
According to the police, Sridhar Singh, a resident of Vijay Nagar Colony, stated in his complaint that he got himself admitted to Deccan Hospital at Somajiguda on July 28 as he had a fever and was feeling weak. The next day, his samples were collected and sent for a COVID-19 test. "The test reports returned negative but the hospital management deliberately did not disclose this to me. Instead, they billed me Rs 3 lakh to Rs 6 lakh on the pretext of treating me. They kept me in the COVID ward," Singh said in his complaint.
It was only on Sunday that the lawyer realised he does not have COVID-19 as he showed no symptoms. He asked the staff for his reports and test results, which mentioned that he had not contracted the disease at all.
When Singh asked the staff as to why they put him in the COVID ward, they could not give him a satisfactory answer. He then approached the police and lodged a complaint against the hospital.